


Hidden

by lurkinglurkerwholurks



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Brother-Sister Relationships, Character Study, Damian Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Drowning, Gen, Good Sibling Cassandra Cain, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt Cassandra Cain, Hurt Damian Wayne, Scars, Sibling Bonding, Whump, Wilderness Survival, brief mention of human trafficking, field medicine, hidden wound, if any batcest readers so much as breathe on this fic I will stomp you to death with my hooves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:01:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21546481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkinglurkerwholurks/pseuds/lurkinglurkerwholurks
Summary: He could see the bubbles leave his mouth, white against black water. Then he was spinning end over end, the world washed of everything but the rumble-tumble and the blur of light and dark. He was screaming. He was scared. He was going to die.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Damian Wayne
Comments: 38
Kudos: 323





	Hidden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DawnsEternalLight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnsEternalLight/gifts).



> Happy birthday, friend!

It was the shock of the shove that knocked the air from his lungs more than the shove itself. The shock of staggering back to find no ground, to feel his boots fall and fall and fall and the rest of him follow. It wasn’t a long drop in terms of freefall. He had barely gotten half his breath back when his body struck the water and forced it free again.

He could see the bubbles leave his mouth, white against black water. Then he was spinning end over end, the world washed of everything but the rumble-tumble and the blur of light and dark. He was screaming. He was scared. He was going to die.

There were sharp cracks, loud enough for him to hear over the water. A dark shape plunged toward him, through the light and into the black. There was a louder crack, inside his head this time as he struck something hard. The dark consumed him.

* * *

Damian turned his head and retched. He didn’t realize he was doing it until the water was already spewing from his mouth, body-warmed liquid spattering against the cold river rocks under his cheek. The hand that had been on his chest now gripped his shoulder and held him on his side, bracing him until he had emptied himself of the river.

He felt like he was still spinning while lying still. His senses reeled out in every direction like tentacles, desperately trying to cling to something solid.

_Where am I? What happened?_

River rock under his cheek. Water from his lungs. He had been in the river and now was out of it again. Someone had pulled him out, was pulling him up now. Damian smacked at the hand tugging him to his feet, but the grip only tightened.

“Up.”

The order was little more than a throaty whisper scraped between bared teeth, but its grip was as strong as the hand.

Damian squinted through water-swollen eyes. “Cain?”

Cain’s head was turned, her eyes looking back across the river. A wet strand of hair clung to her cheek. “They will search. Up.”

The _who_ would return eventually. He didn’t need to know who to know he didn’t want to be caught. Damian nodded, then grimaced as his head swum queasily. He let Cain help him completely to his feet and together they staggered to the dark line of trees waiting like a line of soldiers just off the pebbly beach.

Cain allowed a stop deep enough into the treeline that the river was no more than a rushing noise cast behind towering trunks. Damian gripped one of those trunks tightly, not minding the way the bark bit into his palms.

“Where are we?” he rasped, throat still stinging from his near-drowning.

“Downriver.” Cain’s grip hadn’t left his arm. “Far. Not far enough.”

She sounded rough as well, though it was hard to tell with her. Cain always kept her voice whisper-soft, like what words she had would disappear if she said them too forcefully. She looked like a drowned cat currently, her baggy clothes hanging heavy and dripping. They were the clothes she had been given, a thin cotton jumpsuit with the laundry mark still blazoned across the back. It matched Damian’s own jumpsuit in its drab, overwashed appearance. 

They were meant to be temporary coverings, Damian remembered slowly. Just enough to get the presumed street children fed and healthy before they were sold. He… he had been investigating the disappearances in Gotham. Batman had traced the missing kids to this “second chance” camp in the foothills and had sent Damian and Cass in undercover to penetrate the operation.

He and Cain had seen little of each other, since they were placed in derelict cabins on opposite sides of camp. They had scouted independently and found evidence of the black market operations within four days of arriving. This was the fifth day, the day they had signaled to Batman for infiltration and rescue.

But everything had gone sideways. The campers were being rounded up sooner than anticipated. Damian and Cain had tried to sabotage the relocation and had been caught. There had been a fight. He couldn’t remember much of it, just the screams on the cliffside and the shove that had sent him falling.

And Cain. Cain must have dove in after him. Damian didn’t know what to think about that, so he decided not to think of it at all for now.

“Where can we go?”

It was summer, at least, and not a more inhospitable season, but the woods still grew damp and chilly when the sun set. They would need somewhere hidden and dry to use as a bolthole until they could signal for rescue. Father had made them both study topographical maps of the area around the camp before sending them away, but Damian’s head ached too much. It was like a glitch on a screen, shaking and fuzzing every time he tried to focus.

“Caves, north of here. One has supplies.”

Yes. That was right. He remembered. Father and his million contingencies.

Cain was already driving him onward, her hand sliding up his arm to grip the back of his neck and push him deeper into the woods. Damian tried to shrug her off, shoulders twitching in irritation, but her grip only tightened. She was immovable, a bulldog with Batman’s grip. Damian nearly fought her there, but both froze at a splash upriver. Searchers? A boat? There was no telling without going back to look. Damian glanced back at Cain and saw, for just a moment, his own fear reflected on her face. It was enough to spur him onward.

Their flight through the woods was achingly slow. Both had been trained in a variety of biomes, but neither were completely comfortable in the woods. Feet that could move in utter silence across urban asphalt or shifting desert sands seemed loud and clumsy here. Damian winced every time a misstep cracked a branch or shuffled a leaf, but speed was to be prioritized over stealth. Even if their pursuers were not yet in this part of the woods, they would be soon enough. And night was coming.

Cain’s hand never once left the back of his neck, and Damian’s irritation began to mount again. Of all people to be stuck with, it had to be Cain. He had been prepared to accomplish this mission on his own, but Father had insisted on a buddy system. Grayson and Todd were too old, but Drake would have been acceptable. He was mediocre in many things, but at least he wasn’t overbearing, and he was honest about his dislike of Damian.

Cain, though. Cain was a cypher. Damian was pretty sure she didn’t like him either, but he couldn’t be sure, and the uncertainty unsettled him. Some days she ignored him entirely, while others she treated him like a child.

Worse, she was a danger. In many ways hyper-disciplined, she became sloppily undisciplined in others. Her weak language skills made her a liability in fieldwork. In terms of physicality, she could best him–though Damian was loathe to admit it—and likely everyone else on the team. Not Father, but then, she was utterly devoted to Father, which was the only reason Damian let her stay.

And Father was devoted to her, but that had nothing to do with Damian’s dislike.

Of all people to be stuck with, it had to be Cain.

She set a relentless pace, her hand driving him to move quickly through the underbrush. When Damian would stop to drag air into his waterlogged lungs, Cain’s grip would tighten and her elbow lock, forcing him forward. Only when they reached particularly steep or rocky portions of their path that required climbing did she let go, but then the hand on the back of his neck would return the moment they were back on even ground. It wasn’t as if she were doing so spectacularly herself. Cain’s normally ghost-like gait seemed to find every dip and crackle in the forest floor. Damian considered that she was using him to mask her own ineptitude and his irritation only deepened.

He wasn’t prepared to feel the hand slip from the back of his neck. It was his only warning before her knees hit the ground. Damian turned, face already pursed with irritation, lips parted to berate. The words never left his mouth.

Cain knelt in the leaf litter, one hand braced against the ground and the other clutched to her side. Her hair had mostly dried, but one strand still clung to a cheek that had gone colorless and sweaty. She stared at the ground as if she couldn’t see it, pinprick pupils unblinking.

“Cain?” Damian murmured.

No reply. His fingers curled into a fist as he weighed the risk of touching her shoulder. They didn’t talk about her upbringing with Lady Shiva and the League. They didn’t talk about anything, really, but especially not that. If she weren’t fully aware of her surroundings, startling her could be… bad.

But the shadows of the trees were growing longer and the wind was lifting and every direction held a potential enemy. They needed to keep moving.

“Cassandra?” Damian tried again, voice high with tension.

He squatted, weight positioned to spring back in a flash, and reached for her shoulder. They both flinched when his fingertips pressed against her sweatshirt, but her eyes slowly returned to focus on his face. She peeled her hand away from her side, fingers dripping red.

The sharp cracks he had heard. Gunshots. They must not have had as bad of aim as he had thought.

Damian squinted up. The clouds were moving quickly, pushed along by the rising wind. As best he could tell, they weren’t too far from the drop site, not if they kept a good pace.

He looked down at Cassandra again and bit back an unexpected swell of tears. He didn’t want to deal with this. His head hurt, his socks were wet, he was shivering with every breath, they were being chased unarmed by criminals with guns, and now his partner was bleeding out. What was he supposed to do?

What would Batman do?

Damian gritted his teeth and crawled forward until he was at Cassandra’s side. “Come on.”

They staggered on together, Cassandra guiding and Damian tucked under her arm for support. It was closer than they had ever been before, and Damian marveled. She was a contradiction, fragile like a bird’s wing but hard with muscle like a horse’s flank. By the time they cleared the third fallen tree, she was breathing heavily. He had never heard her breathe that way before. He hadn’t known she even could. Surely David Cain had beaten that out of her.

Then again, Damian had thought Grandfather had beaten crying out of him as well, but he nearly sobbed aloud when the first of the caves appeared in the steep hillside. It took time to find the specific cave they needed, but once they did, they both staggered inside, gasping with relief even as the skies opened up on their heels.

Damian deposited Cassandra against a wall that had been swept for lurking dangers, then headed straight for the dangling pack right where he knew it would be. Father would have made sure the cave was clear of nests and dens when he placed the pack, but Damian pulled a penlight from the outer pocket and did a second search to ease the frantic pace of his own heart. Once the cave was secure, he returned to the pack and dragged it over to Cain.

She didn’t ask if they were safe, would know from his return alone and the slant of his shoulders and the position of his mouth. Damian’s hand shook from cold and the toxic shock of fading adrenaline as he pulled out the med kit.

Cassandra mumbled something he didn’t understand, likely a command he wouldn’t have followed anyways. Damian wondered how much language she retained like this, her brain malfunctioning with pain and blood loss. He spoke aloud as he worked anyways, explaining each touch, each movement, each press of a swab or poke of the needle-nose pliers. Damian had never dug out a bullet before, but the blood loss was too steady to let the projectile remain.

He hated every minute of it. He hated the way his hands trembled and the slick of blood across his skin. He hated how hyper-aware he was of Cassandra’s every breath and flinch. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he was amateurish and clumsy. He wanted Father to appear and sweep them both away to safety.

But at last, Damian covered the now clean and empty wound and rocked back on his heels. He turned away and pulled a packet of wipes out to clean the blood from his hands. When he turned back, Cassandra had pushed herself up, face contorted in pain.

“What are you doing?” Damian demanded. “Lie down.”

Cassandra’s hands fluttered, attempting to sign only to rush back to the ground when she began to tip. She pursed her lips, her mouth thin and white as teeth, then reached up once more just enough to tug on the extra fabric of her jumpsuit.

Damian stared blankly, then shivered as the sensation of damp cloth against his chilled skin rose to the forefront again.  
_Oh._

He nodded, then gingerly pushed at her shoulders until she was resting against the wall. Once Cassandra was in less danger of falling over, Damian dug about the pack for the spare clothes he knew would be there. He wiped his nose on his wrist, pulled the protective plastic bags out, and tossed one to the dirt next to Cassandra.

“Do, uh, you need…” he began hesitantly. _Please no._

Damian nearly sighed aloud when Cassandra shook her head.

“Good. Uh, good,” he muttered, then scurried away to the other side of the cave to change.

Still, Damian kept an eye on her as they both hurried to get into dry clothes. It wasn’t a big cave, and he was worried she would fall and need more stitches and he did _not_ want to deal with that. Seeing Cassandra in her underwear would definitely be a lowlight of the day—modest as they were, she was still sort of his sister—maybe he would need therapy—but Damian’s attention was mostly taken up by the scars.

He knew she had scars, of course. They all did, from their lives now, from their lives before. He had them and did his best to keep them covered. They didn’t bother him, but they bothered the others, Grayson especially. And Damian had never particularly considered Cassandra’ scars, partially because they seemed like a very private thing, much like underwear, and partially… Well, partially because he didn’t think about Cassandra Cain in the context of being injured.

She just _wasn’t_. Ever. Grayson might come home with a twisted ankle, Drake might return with a black eye, and even Father had his fair share of injuries, but Cassandra… There were times Damian hadn’t been convinced that Black Bat even knew how to bleed. Sometimes she would disappear for a few days, but he hadn’t considered it might be to hide an injury. That is, if he considered her absence at all.

But there she was, hunched in the shadows just outside of the beam of the penlight, her body a layered mess of scars. Damian knew she knew he was looking. They were both sensitive to the touch of eyes. But he couldn’t stop glancing over, every look a new horror. A knife wound here. An old bullet wound there. What looked like something prolonged and vicious there and there.

He understood. He was maybe the only person in their whole family who would.

At last, they were both dressed in clean, dry clothes. Damian had found an electric lantern in the bag as well and had stopped his own trembling well enough to wipe the dried blood from his forehead and clean out the gash. Cassandra had rooted around the pack on her own and found the homing beacon that would alert Father to their position, a welcome boon since the trackers hidden in their clothes had been lost when they arrived at camp.

Now they were both leaning against the cave wall, protein bars clutched in their hands and a canteen of purified water between them. Outside, the storm howled, likely driving their pursuers far, far away.

Damian adjusted the silver blanket over the both of them, then said, “You should sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

He could feel Cassandra dip her chin to look down at him. The gaze felt contemplative, less of a pressure and more of a resting. It bore no weight. The words stuck in his chest did, so he let them free.

“Thank you,” Damian whispered, “for jumping in after me.”

Cassandra didn’t reply. She wasn’t one for words, and Damian was fine with that. He wondered in the silence if she had already fallen asleep, but then lips pressed feather soft into his hair.

He smiled. She slept. The rain fell.


End file.
